


Scarves

by digitalsoop



Category: Free!
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-23
Updated: 2014-09-23
Packaged: 2018-02-18 13:25:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2349992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/digitalsoop/pseuds/digitalsoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for tumblr user chroniclesofna</p><p>Makoto never expected his fondness of scarves to make his relationship with Gou stronger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scarves

Makoto had always enjoyed scarves. Though he only really wore them in the fall and winter, he’d amassed a collection that rivaled Gou’s socks. Most of them were knit or cotton, and neutral colored or plaid or striped. Instead of teasing him, Gou had been rather impressed that he had a scarf for practically every day of the month, and it wasn’t long until she had taken to borrowing them.

On cold days she would wrap some of his fluffiest scarves around her neck, carefully adjusting and pulling until the scarf was just over her nose. Then she would close her eyes, press the soft knit closer to her face, and stand quietly for quite some time. This was something, of course, that Makoto had discovered on accident—he had caught her in the act by her shoe locker, when she had been sure everyone else was attending to their classroom and club duties.

When her eyes slowly opened and she realized he was standing in front of her with a smile on his face, she had frantically thrown as many excuses at him as she could. “I was just tired—the scarf is warm so I dozed off—since I thought you’d be doing classroom duty for longer than that and I’d have to wait a while—taking a quick nap seemed okay! Though, it wasn’t much of a nap really, it was more that I was resting my eyes.”

Makoto wasn’t sure how to tell her that he had been pretty happy to see her peacefully bundled up in some of his clothes, so he had laughed and held her hands. “That scarf is really cozy, right? You should keep it.”

And that had started Gou’s own scarf collection. She had taken a few more of this winter scarves at first, but then she had gotten interested in cotton scarves, and silk scarves, and soon her collection was more expansive than Makoto’s, simply because she could wear her scarves in all four seasons. It had never crossed his mind to wear a scarf in the summer, but maybe because of Rin’s influence and knowledge of overseas fashion, Gou had quickly picked up the idea. She wore scarves with tee shirts and shorts, tank tops and skirts. Even dresses were paired off with a scarf. And each scarf was carefully draped in ways that Makoto couldn’t even begin to figure out.  

Careful triangles, intricate knots, loose bows and braids; no matter how careful he was to hide his many curious looks and hide requests for instructions in his compliments, Gou eventually caught on. “Do you want to try it with one of your scarves? It’s easy for guys.”

Haruka had been perplexed when Makoto had told him they wouldn’t be walking home together, but when he admitted that he was taking the train home with Gou, he raised his eyebrows then looked to the side. “Don’t mess up when we’re so close to graduating.”

"It’s not like we have to get undressed to try on a scarf!" The click of his teeth when he closed his mouth was barely audible, but he felt the vibration shoot all the way through his jaw and jump straight to his ears, which were catching each new giggle and whisper, and were growing hotter by the second. "I’ll see you later, Haru."

The train ride with Gou was thankfully quiet and uneventful. She dozed against his shoulder while he looked out the windows—he had never actually ridden her train route before and he fidgeted when he realized this would be the first time visiting her house. Plus, if Gou got her way, he would end up eating dinner with her and her mother.

His anxiety had reached its peak when the train stopped, he was sure that by the time they were at the front door of her house it would be skyrocketing into space. But Gou opened her front door, invited him in with a smile, and his anxiety began to slowly sink back down when she closed the door behind him. “My room’s this way. You can bring your things with you.”

The home was as neat and tidy as he had expected a Matsuoka home to be, but Gou’s room was much more pink and fluffy than he had imagined; he had been steeling himself for walls covered in posters of muscular men, and instead only found wood paneling, doodles on the wall near her bed, and a lot of pink stuffed animals and posters of even more cute animals. Somehow, it still had the light and airy feeling of a cabin on the beach.

"Here they are!" Gou swung her arms and drew his attention to her desk. Carefully laid out on top were his scarves, joined by all the bright, colorful and fringed scarves she had collected for herself.

"It looks like a lot when they’re all laid out like this." He approached the desk and fiddled with his old scarves. She laughed and twiddled her thumbs, admitting that she may have spent more of her allowance than she should have. "They’re all nice though. This one is really nice."

A small hum of agreement later and she had picked the scarf up and held it out for him; the fabric was light, almost see-through, and from a distance had a coral pattern. But once it was in his hands he realized that it was actually a floral pattern; faint patches of pink had dark lines drawn over them to depict tiny bunches of flowers and string thin stems, and equally faint purple created the heftier stems that held the flowers up. He pulled the scarf through his fingers, finding that the ends were slightly frayed into tassels.

"I bought that one recently but—I don’t really know how to explain it, I like it a lot, but on me it just doesn’t look right."

"Can I have it?"

His teeth clicked again. The scarf burned his hands but he couldn’t let it go, staring down at it and gripping it even tighter, until his fingernails dug into his palm. He hadn’t meant to say that—he didn’t know why he had said that—but it was too late. He couldn’t take it back, and now he truly wanted an answer. He wanted this scarf.

"Really? I have other ones that don’t have flowers—like this." She held up a square black scarf with bright geometric patterns and one tassel on each corner.

"This one," he ran his thumb on the floral fabric, too embarrassed to look her in the eyes, "is the one I really like. Is it okay?"

She hesitated, glancing between the two scarves and the rest on her desk. The black scarf was returned to its place, and she carefully put her hands over his and pried the scarf from his fingers. He wanted to throw up—he was sure he would, just out of shame and nothing else. Then Gou stood on her tiptoes and swung the scarf over his head, draping it around his neck. She looped and tugged and took two steps back before Makoto could even ask what she was doing.

Her head tilted to one side, then the other. Her hand rested under her chin, and then she pressed one finger to her temple, her brow furrowed and her lips in a scowl.

"Gou?"

Her eyes darted up to his, and slowly her eyes brightened and her mouth turned up into a grin. “It really suits you!” 

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was just a comment based on the fact that I often write or mention Gou collecting socks. chroniclesofna suggested that maybe Makoto really likes scarves, especially ones that most people would consider girly. I loved the idea so I turned it into a prompt.


End file.
